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Monday, December 31, 2007

If anyone out there cares, here's a list of all the cards I used for my Twelve Days of Cardmas. I'll update this post as I figure out the obscure ones. (It may take a while - I dug up some real weirdos)

Sunday, December 30, 2007

A while back, I ripped a pack of Upper Deck Artifacts and really liked it. The design was really different from everything else out there and it appealed to me. It reminds me of an Indiana Jones movie or something. I picked up a couple of packs here and there and eventually broke down and got a blaster a couple of months ago. At the time I was getting to the nitty gritty on my A&G and Goudey sets and I was looking for a cool, small, easy to complete set to build (and have a few packs to rip) while I looked for those last few cards for my other sets. Artifacts seemed good, it was only 100 cards and did not have the numbered short prints of the other Artifacts sets.

I got this box, was a little put off by it, and then UD Masterpieces came out and I forgot all about Artifacts. Masterpieces turned out to be the set I really wanted, 90 cards, the checklist ranges from stars (or at least top prospects) to eternal all-time Legends and it was gorgeous to boot. Now I have a mostly completed Masterpieces set (working on one last trade!) and 60% of a set I don't know what to do with now. Here's the box break for posterity. There are still a lot of these floating out there (I have a feeling Artifacts will be the packs in repack boxes and Target El-Cheapo bins in a couple of years) and this can serve as a warning, or an encouragement if you like this sort of thing, to anyone out there looking at a box. First, the box:

The box has a rather cool design, it's made to look like an old packing crate, presumably carrying some treasure from the Orient. I'm not exactly sure why they chose a picture of Derek Jeter about to pick his nose to be the cover boy for the product, but archaeologists pick their noses too I suppose. There's also a big day-glo "EXCLUSIVE - Find a memorabilia card in EVERY BOX!!" plastered on the front. Hey, a gamer per box! I've said before they should have been doing this for a while now. Put all the relics in blasters and voilà - no more pack searching. Finally, progress! The sides show a Jeter Divisional Artifacts game-used card (with two pinstripes!) and advertises "Pull Antiquity and Divisional Artifacts memorabilia cards!" in a sort of stencil motif. There's even "FRAGILE" (which I think is Italian for Major Award) stenciled on there as well. So now you're thinking wooooo.... gamers... me want Antiquity and Divisional Artifacts! One Per box! ME BUY!!! So the front says "one memorabilia per box" and the sides say "pull Antiquity and Divisional Artifacts memorabilia cards". Remember that for later. Now to the packs:

Griffey Jr., plus the other Jose Reyes. Jose A. didn't even play this year, but his baseball-reference.com page is sponsored by a cool Braves blog I'd never seen before just right now. This pack just went from meh to Awesome.

Last pack is a little lackluster but no complaints about the cards. Lots of stars, the Dice-K rookie, no Braves but I got Tex, and no doubles. Not a bad box. Now......... here's the advertised relic card.

That's not a Divisional Artifacts card... Nor is it an Antiquity card (I know, I looked it up on the interweb). That's right, the one-per box card is not from '07 Artifacts, but a card from 2002. Upper Deck Diamond Connection Quads to be exact. It's not exactly a bad card, although it would have been a hell of a lot better back in '02 before all the subjects got really old really quick. Plus the book value is something like 20-25 bucks, but still I felt like the rug was yanked out on me a little here. I didn't expect the "one per box" card to be a refugee from one of the MemorabiliaBlisterpacks you see at Target. Once again I'm bitching about pulling a really neat card, but it still seems like there was a little false advertising here. Of course I already pulled a freaking SWEET Jeter auto from this product, so I can chuck the rest of the cards in the trash and still make out like a bandit even if I never get around to completing the set now. So if you cool kids see one of these mysterious packing crates at the checkout aisle of your local box store, now you know what you're getting into.

An amazing Bert Blyleven statistic that I wouldn’t wish upon any major league pitcher:From his 1970 rookie season through 1977 I’ve accumulated his quality starts that I’ve defined as: 6innings, 2earned runs or less; 7,8,9innings, 3earned runs or less; and 9innings+ 4 earned runs or less in which he garnered a no decision or a loss only……

I understand that pitchers put up great games and get snakebit on occasion, but this accounted for almost 1 of every 3 starts, 82 of 279 to be exact or 29%. Show me a Hall of Famer that had to go through this year by year. Fortunately once Blyleven ended up in Pittsburgh and later some good Minnesota teams, this trend eased to what I would consider normal levels (I had researched this in the past but don’t have the numbers on hand)

Imagine 1974, your 17-9 in 27 games, and in the other 10, all of which are essentially quality starts, you post a 1.80ERA and go 0-8. You end up 17-17. If you don’t know the facts, and your voting for the Cy Young award, and you see 17-17. Do you cast a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place vote? Probably not. This is what Blyleven faced in yesteryear, and the same writers, who I contend do not know the facts, are what Blyleven faces every year in the HOF vote.

Go ahead, plug in a different year, or harken back to Baseball-reference and neutralize the stats, do it for every one of Blyleven’s contemporaries. The numbers don’t change much, but for Bert Blyleven, they do. The example given above is my attempt to show why. Teams that didn’t score runs and booted the ball around like it was a soccer match.

That's 53 losses and 29 no decisions for Bert, all in games where he pitched well enough to win with any kind of run support, all in only the 8 years before he was traded to Pittsburgh. If his team scored enough runs to win just one quarter of those games he has 307 wins and he would have been elected to the Hall of Fame years ago. Yet genetic defectives like Sean McAdam still can't get past the fact that he didn't get much Cy Young support and his win total didn't pass a round number. Thanks Anonymous, whoever you are (Bob Klapisch, perhaps?) for doing the research and finding out this gem of a stat. It's time to strip the writers of their Hall votes and give them to the Stat Geeks.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

So I posted back here that I wanted anyone with a blog to let me know about it so I could add it to my blogroll. I really do like stealing from reading other people's card stuff. I only got one new blog, but boy am I glad I did. Reader Russ is the proprietor of The House of Cardboard. Russ hasn't updated in a while and right now I sympathize with him. Between holidays and work and bills and laundry piling up and the toilet seat breaking (just broke! I got a fat butt, but come on already) and the garbage man coming at seemingly random intervals and all kind of other nonsense I'm surprised I've posted at all. Well, I looked though his archives and found this post on some pack breaks from Target. This comment on Tom Glavine is what really got me:

Tom and I have a love/hate relationship with each other. I have always been a Braves fan and after the 2002 season, he basically spit in my face, called my momma names and ran over my dog. Now you can say Glavine wanted more money or that John Schuerholz just screwed the whole thing up, but I'm sticking with the theory that it was all Glavine's fault.

YES!!!!!!!! Finally I found someone who agrees with me on Tommy Turncoat! There's at least one other person who won't look at me funny or flat out call me "not a true Braves fan" just because I don't like Tom Glavine. I understand all the reasons why I should like him and I should be glad he's back. But I don't. I'm not going to like him ever again. Am I glad he'll be pitching for the Braves in 2008? Sure. I wish he had pitched for them in 2007, to be honest (and so do the Mets). He'll be a decent back of the rotation option who will win 10 games or so assuming the arm doesn't fall off. He's only getting 8 million a year which isn't that bad assuming he can eat up 150-180 good innings. Giving up our 1st round draft pick to the Mets while we get nothing for Andruw galls me, but that's a front office problem. Do I hope he'll pitch well and maybe even stick around the organization awhile? Sure, although I don't want him anywhere near out postseason roster. I'm not going to flat out boo him anymore, but he'll have to do something spectacular for me to cheer for him.

I've spouted off on why the whole 2002 thing pissed me off so badly before and I'm not rehashing it here. Every time I do so I seemingly get flack about how I don't know the full details of Tom's contract or the negotiation between him and Schuerholz and that's true, I don't. I do know something about a simple economic concept called an Opportunity Cost. Opportunity cost means that if someone uses an economic resource in one way, the cost is that it can't be used in another way. For example, if you sell a piece of land, you can't build a house to live in on it. If you eat the box of cookies you got from Grandma, you can't bring them to the New Year's party to share. (burp) If you pay your mortgage, you won't be able to buy that three-box case of Sport Kings. And so on.

I don't think anyone disputes that Tom got a better monetary offer from the Mets, although the amount is in dispute. Tom got more money to go to the Mets, but what was the cost? First he didn't have Andruw Jones snagging fly balls behind him in center field and instead relied on Jeff Duncan, Timo Perez and Tsuyoshi Shinjo to catch his fly balls. His ERA jumped a full run and a half that first season, so take that how you will. Who knows who would win the division if he stayed with the Braves, but other than 2006 he sure didn't have any postseason opportunities. What about his family? Tom has been really weepy about how he hated to leave his family behind when he signed with the Mets. Why wasn't that taken into account when he decided he simply could not work with Schuerholz? Again, an opportunity cost that doesn't show up in the Accountant's books, but is much more real than any line in a ledger. How about advertising opportunities? I seem to remember him having a few local endorsement deals here in the ATL, did he make as much in New York? If he stayed here, he would be first in line to take up Hank Aaron's mantle as Mr. Brave. How many future opportunities would that have given to Tom? Now he's a great player who will still get sponsor deals in Atlanta, but they're sure not naming the street in front of the stadium after him. Tom got more money, but also gave up a lot to get that extra cash. I'll root for him at a game (as long as he doesn't have one of his patented first inning meltdowns), I'll still collect his cards and I'm glad that he'll (likely) end his career with the Braves and go into the Hall with an A on his cap. But after the crap he pulled in 2002, I simply can never be a devoted fan ever again, and there are others who agree with me. One more cost of putting on that Mets uniform.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Anyone out there who was fascinated (or horrified) by my insaneGregMadduxinserts from my 12 days of Cardmas post will be interested in this awesome thread from the Beckett Message boards. A member asked for opinions on the coolest insert set of the 90's, and a flood of images of the most obnoxious, flashy designs ever put to cardboard ensues. This is a great history lesson on the Golden Age of insert cards, before relics and autos pushed them aside. I need to go look though my old insert binders today to find a couple that can rival some of the beauties in that post.

I need to avoid this site for a while or else I'll end up digging up my box of '80's football cards and abandon The 792 to make up my own football card list: The 396, and I just don't have time for that now.

But of course I'll do it anyway.

Introducing Dayf's Ultimate 80's Topps Football Set: The 396

1. Super Bowl XXIII, 1989

Ok, that's enough for now. Maybe I'll finish it next football season. Now I have Prior Art in case any wise guys gets any ideas. Then again, Ben Henry has the original original idea so he'll get all the royalty payments. That folks, is how a Blogging Empire is built...

Longtime Braves coach Jim Beauchamp passed away from leukemia. Jim was a longtime coach during the Braves' heyday in the 90's. It took me a while to realize that coach "Beech-um" Pete Van Wieren kept referring to during broadcasts on TBS was that guy in my '67 Topps Braves set. Jim's one of the first names that comes to mind when I think of Braves coaches and I always expected him to pop back up on the bench next to Bobby sooner or later. I'm sorry to hear of this, especially since it happened on Christmas.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Nope, I haven't forgotten about this... I have the cards together, they just need to hit the scanner. Here's a few I do have scanned. If you've forgotten what all this is about while I procrastinated, click here to refresh your memory.

While I didn't actually write any of them down, I have several collecting goals for 2007 that I've more or less completed. Complete the 2007 Topps set - check, complete the Allen & Ginter set - one card away, get the Topps stuff organized and want lists together - kinda check, work on the blog - double check. Another goal I had on the front burner was to complete some of my Braves team sets. Specifically I wanted to finish off at least one per decade. I did a pretty good job on that goal as I knocked out a bunch of 80's traded sets, 1977 Topps (with some auto'd cards no less), 1969 with Felipe Alou and I completed the 1953 set by finally tracking down a Warren Spahn. Anything more was a bonus, and that bonus arrived in the mail yesterday:

A gorgeous 1956 Topps Eddie Mathews card, the last one I needed for my '56 Topps team set. After the 1953 set, 1956 Topps is probably my next favorite set from Topps. A lot of people prefer the 1955 edition with the bright colors and the logo, but I think the action shots look much better in 1956. The photo here is spectacular, it appears that Eddie has just clobbered Pee-Wee Reese at second base. Eddie takes his base as poor Pee-Wee is sprawled out writhing on the ground while the ball is a yard away. The other two Hall of Famers have cool action pics as well. Hank has the famous Willie Mays sliding into home goof on his card, while Spahnie looks like a Greek God straddling Mount Olympus on his.

Now technically, I don't have a complete complete team set as I don't have the rare "1955" team card variety although I do have the left and center versions. I also don't have any of the 1956 Topps pins or the Warren Spahn Hocus Focus card either. It's still a team set though, I can work on the rarities and oddballs later. Here it is in all its glory (click to view a large version).

For anyone interested, this is the card that started me off on this crippling addiction. How I love it so.

I tried to find a video of Cracker's "Happy Birthday to Me", but I only found live performances that were incomplete or had terrible sound quality, so instead I guess we'll settle for Altered Images and the best song ever.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas, that is. Yeah, it's fun and all, but dear Jesus, I'm wiped out. I'm glad to be home at my own computer with my own scanner and a pile of cards that need to be scanned so I can post them. I'm way behind on my 792 responsibilities. It's also nice to be listening to my own radio again. The one at my in-law's house couldn't get Album 88. That was no good at all especially since Gate City Radio is on tonight with the BBC Radio Play of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and hopefully some Jack Benny Show to listen to while I scan.

I did have a nasty shock today when I realized I had gotten through the holiday season without hearing this. I've made up for lost time though. Al won't let me embed his video, so here's the Anime version.

Ahhhh, now that's the Holiday spirit. Now I can get to scanning (as soon as I can figure out why it won't work @#%^!!!) and post a bunch of crap before the end of the year. I need to hurry and get prolific if I'm going to beat last month's post count and continue my streak of increasing each month since May. I probably won't make it, but the Twelve Days post is like 12 posts in one, so that's good enough for Government work. Since this is a baseball card blog, I guess I better post a random card at the end of this rambling mess:

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Hey, look what Santa left in the mailbox yesterday... I'll have to open this this up and share, but first more Xmas revelry. Stay Tuned...

Indian Baseball Cards. Always. celebrated the Holiday season by sending out a bunch of goodie bags with a "12 Days of Christmas" theme. I was honored with the first one and it arrived wrapped just in time for Christmas. I put it in my stocking and opened it up on Christmas day. Here's what arrived (scans to come soon):

* I'm absolutely sure I need at least one, if not all, of these '71 cards for my team set. Since completing at least some of my Vintage Topps team sets was one of my goals for 2007, this is way cool.Update - yep, needed two of 'em. I only need two more high numbers to finish that one off now.

** I didn't even know Pristine existed in a non-Chrome variety. Eeeeexcellent.

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About Me

One man's tireless crusade to promote card collecting as an addictive alternative to more pharmacological pursuits. Remember kids: Do Drugs, Cards have gotten entirely too stupid. Or don't, see if I care when you RUIN YOUR LIFE FOREVER

Dayf the Blogger has a Posse

My original crappy neglected blog what I'm trying to resurrect this year

Note on the Blogroll

If you have a blog, and it ain't on here, LET ME KNOW! There are a lot of good blogs I'm missing out on. I'm also very forgetful and sometimes forget to put it on the list even if I do find a good one. If your blog is about cards or trading or sports in general I'll fit it in, but don't try to sneak your blog about politics or cats or crop rotation in the 14th century on here.